Peter Maximoff v Food, Hugging, & Other People's Clothing
by schweinsty
Summary: "You have a remarkably thick skull," his dad said, "But reality can't help but sink in sooner or later." One bad day turns into what Charles euphemistically calls 'a rough patch'. Crap happens, people try to be helpful, and the long, slow slog of progress takes a lunch break. Somewhere along the line, things start to sink in. Third in the 1970s verse.


**Author's Notes:**

1\. This is the third in my 1970s verse, following Peter Maximoff v Convalescence, and won't make much sense without reading the first two fics.

2\. This one ties up the main trilogy, but there will definitely be more fics in this verse. Hope y'all enjoy! :D

3\. **Content Notes** : As with the first two, there's a lot of dealing with the trauma aftermath of torture & captivity, including self-harm and issues of self-worth. This one's also got issues with food/disordered eating, due to trauma. More detailed notes are at the end.

 **Peter Maximoff v Food, Hugging, & the Structural Integrity of Other People's Outerwear**

Erik doesn't leave.

When Peter wakes up the morning after his late-night freakout, his dad's dozing off in the visitor's chair with his socked feet propped up on the edge of Peter's mattress. He's changed into a pair of jeans, a plain t-shirt, and a flannel overshirt―possibly the most dressed-down Peter's ever seen the man, voluntarily―and there's a protein shake and a glass of orange juice on Peter's nightstand. Clearly, Erik's been up and out of the room, but his fingers still encircle Peter's wrist in a loose hold.

Well. It's a loose hold until Peter, now fully awake and thinking longingly of the bathroom, starts to carefully ease his hand out of it. His dad's fingers clamp down and his eyes snap open, immediately sharp. He takes in Peter, who probably still looks like warmed-over shit, and his gaze, unlike his grip, softens.

"Good morning," he says, his voice not even remotely rough or gravelly, and that's just incredibly unfair, because all the genes that make Erik such a cool asshole clearly skipped a generation.

"Morning," Peter answers. Then, when Erik still doesn't relax his grip, "Dude. I have to piss."

Finally, finally, his dad looks down at his hand as if he hadn't even noticed and lets go. Peter's is hot and clammy. He pushes the blankets down as far as he can reach and kicks them the rest of the way until they rest in a crumpled-up hill at the foot of his bed.

Then he lies on the bed and pants for a few seconds, because moving is exhausting.

"Do you need help?" His father asks eventually.

Peter waves his hand. "I've got it."

He totally does, too. Any second now, he's going to sit up, get out of bed, and cross all four or five feet between his bed and the en suite bathroom.

Any second now.

He is going to go. Right now.

Absolutely.

His dad sighs, settles back into his chair, and stretches his hand back out towards Peter's wrist.

Peter sits up. "I'm up," he announces unnecessarily. He swings his legs out of bed and lurches to his feet.

Erik, holds a newspaper up and pretends he's not hiding a smirk behind it.

It takes Peter considerably longer than he'd like to dwell on to make it to the bathroom, and he has to lean his arm against the wall by the toilet when he pisses. He looks down at his hands when he catches sight of himself in the mirror in front of the sink when he's washing his hands; his eyes are puffy and red, and he's even paler than usual.

His dad, at least, doesn't mention it when he comes back out, though Peter can feel Erik's eyes track him as he makes it back to his bed in a barely-controlled stagger. He lets himself flop forward when his knees hit the mattress, and he lies on his stomach, pants, and doesn't move. His calves burn.

Beds, though. Beds are great. Beds are the best. Peter never wants to be parted from his bed again.

"You need to eat," Erik says after a minute or two. Peter's usually pretty good at marking time—usually counts each minute in excruciating ages—but the bed (and the seriously ridiculous sheets—and God, but sometimes he's so grateful Charles is loaded, they're softer than anything he's ever slept on)—have Peter's full attention. His love for the bed is as his love for Little Debbie: pure, soul-consuming, and entirely deserved. Peter gives in to the inexorable pull of tired body and fuzzy mind; he shuts his eyes and lets himself sink into the bed, and the bed accepts him.

"Peter," Erik says, "If you don't eat soon, you'll feel ill again."

Peter technically hears the words, but he's far enough under that he can't be bothered to parse them.

"Hrrmmmmnnnn," he answers.

He and the bed are one.

His dad sighs. There's a crackling sound as he sets aside the newspaper, and the chair creaks. Then Erik's hands grab Peter under the armpits and heave him bodily up the bed.

Peter squawks; Peter flails; Peter jerks back awake in a snap just as his upper body lands against the mound of pillows at the head of the bed.

"Oh my God," he starts. He stops to flop over onto his back and grab the gray fleece blanket crumpled at on his left to wrap it around his shoulders. Then he stays interrupted because his bedroom looks sunny and warm, but he's cold enough to need a blanket and tired enough that settling it over himself leaves his arms feeling too heavy to hold up, so maybe his dad has a point.

His dad wordlessly holds the shake out to him.

Peter's arms lie heavy in his lap. He can feel minuscule tremors starting and knows his hands are going to be shaking in a minute.

"Um," he starts. Butterflies twist his stomach. He bites his lip. Damn it; he spent over an hour last night pouring his guts out to his dad and actually sobbing on the guy's shoulder, but getting 'I need help,' out is like trying to chew rocks. "I, uh. Can't?"

His dad looks up at Peter from the paper on his knee, looks down at his hands, and, mercifully, doesn't ask any questions. He sets the paper aside again and shifts his chair up and over until it presses the nightstand back up against the wall with his weight, close enough for him to reach up easily to, say, bop Peter on the nose or ruffle Peter's hair. Or, as he does, grab a plastic straw from the top of the nightstand, set it in the glass, and hold the glass steadily in front of Peter's mouth.

"Thanks," Peter says. His face and neck flush hot and his insides squirm, but he leans forward and takes a sip. The texture is oddly chalky interspersed with chunks of some unidentifiable gloop, and the taste manages to be both syrupy sweet and almost offensively bland, but Hank clearly knows what he's doing. Just three sips in, Peter feels steadier. His head doesn't swim as much, his stomach settles down, and the drowsiness recedes enough that he stops blinking every few seconds in order to keep his eyes open.

"There you go," his dad says. He turns to the right, as if he's looking for someone. "Charles."

Peter sits still and doesn't, despite his baser instincts, make any smartass comments. He still feels guilty for hogging Erik all night and all morning, again, even though his dad told him not to. The sooner he's better, he tells himself, the sooner he can stop interrupting everyone else's lives and being a bother. He sips steadily at the shake and promises himself he'll do whatever he needs to to get well soon.

It's not long before Erik turns back and looks down—at the half-empty glass with approval, at Peter's still visibly-shaking hands with a definitely unapproving twitch of the lips. "Hank's coming to look you over in a bit. He'll probably set you on an IV again." He lowers the glass and rests it on the mattress. "Would you like to shower?"

IV in the morning means Hank probably won't take it off until tomorrow, but Peter just showered at, like, three o'clock last night, and given the choice between asking his dad to help him bathe or staying in the Bed of Happiness..."Nah," Peter says. "I'm good."

"All right."

The glass bumps up against his chin, and Peter obediently leans forward and takes another sip. His neck is starting to ache from holding his head up, and he just wants to lie back and take a quick nap before Hank comes around to poke at him. But his dad's holding up the glass with an expectant look on his face, and less calories means more shaking means longer having to ask other people to help him eat and shower. Peter keeps at it until he finishes the shake off.

He's disproportionately proud of himself when he does, and he flops back down and pretends, for a second, that drinking breakfast didn't actually make him sweat with effort. The feeling lasts about as long as it takes for Erik to set the empty glass down and pick up the glass full of orange juice from the nightstand.

"Here," he says. "Sit up. Wash the taste away."

Peter groans.

He ends up needing his dad's help like he did that first morning on the plane ride to New York. Erik has to lean in, brace Peter's shoulders with one arm and hold the glass up with the other. Unlike on the plane, however, the orange juice isn't drugged, and Peter's entirely lucid. For every humiliating moment.

"Umm," he starts when a quarter of the juice is gone. "Sorry you have to—"

"Idiocy doesn't suit you," Erik interrupts, "Surprisingly enough. So stop. I already told you there's no need for apologies."

Peter bites his tongue and takes another drink.

"Besides, Charles informs me that sleepless nights and all-hour feedings are normal in the first few weeks of parenthood."

Peter stares. Erik doesn't twitch, but there's a tell-tale glint to his eyes.

"You," Peter says, "Are such an asshole."

"Don't strain yourself."

"Oh my God." Peter gulps down another quarter glass in one go. "How are we even related?"

He jerks accidentally on his next sip and knocks his chin against the glass. Erik's fingers slip on the glass slick with condensation, and orange juice splashes over Peter's neck and the collar of his t-shirt. Erik swears quite colorfully in German and moves, pushes Peter so he's leaning forward and can stay upright without his help, presumably to grab some napkins or a towel. Which is fine, except Peter moves too far too fast and one of his back muscles, still aching from yesterday's run, pulls and protests at the movement and suddenly cramps. Which, in turn, causes Peter to bite out a curse himself. While he's still in the process of swallowing the orange juice he'd gulped to begin with.

Coughing uncontrollably, it turns out, with a cramping muscle in your lower back when you're huddled over your knees and your entire body's aching from running at two hundred miles an hour the previous day, is surprisingly excruciating.

Peter's aware of a lot of movement and a lot of swearing and not much else besides the blinding pain that's grabbed hold of his back and twisted his muscles around like a fork in so much spaghetti. Each time he coughs, he jerks forward and itburns, and he can't. Stop. Coughing.

Finally, finally he manages to take a breath, then another, and the coughs lapse into sharp wheezing. Hank's there, on one side of him, and his dad is sitting fully on the bed on the other. Erik's got one hand on Peter's shoulder and the other on his back, rubbing slow and heavy lines between Peter's shoulder blades. Peter sags in his grip, and his dad moves so Peter's chest rests against his shoulder as Peter's breathing starts to even out. Peter lets his weight hang heavy and focuses on calming down. He swipes at watery eyes with his hand and his biceps practically scream, and he puts the thought of moving again any time soon entirely out of his mind.

He's still gasping when Hank takes his knee off the bed and leans down to pick up his flashlight, a thermometer, and an IV bag, which are scattered on the floor by the bed. Peter drops his head onto his dad's shoulder and shuts his eyes.

"You okay?" Hank asks after a second. Judging by the noise, he's grabbing the IV stand and setting it up. It's a sound Peter's gotten intimately familiar with recently.

Peter shakes his head against Erik's shoulder. "My back. Muscle cramp."

His dad's hand moves, knuckles kneading across Peter's back until—

"Shit!" Peter yelps and grabs a fistful of Erik's loose flannel shirt as his dad works on the knot. "Fuck. Fuck. Fucking—"

"I'll go grab a muscle relaxant for you," Hank says.

Peter waits until the footsteps fade down the hallway before he speaks. "One joke about babies," he says, voice rough, "Or spitting up, and I swear I'll—"

"The thought hadn't crossed my mind," Erik answers, which probably means the thought had been crossing his mind with neon lights on at that very second, because he's an asshole. He takes that moment to dig his fingers in right under the knot, hard, while Peter's distracted. Peter grunts, sucks in a breath, and instinctively lets go of Erik's shirt. He digs the fingernail of his thumb into the bony side of the knuckle of his index finger as hard as he can.

He doesn't realize Erik's stopped until Erik sighs.

"Did you start doing that recently," Erik asks, "Or was that from before you were kidnapped?"

Peter drops his hand to his knee and stretches out his fingers. "Sorry. I didn't—it's a habit."

"Clearly." Erik resumes his work on Peter's back. "So?"

Peter shrugs, a movement he regrets as soon as he makes it. "I dunno. I didn't—it was easier to focus on when they—did. Stuff. It's not a big deal."

Erik makes a thoughtful 'hmm'. "You said that last night."

Peter grabs onto a fold of his fleece blanket and twists it in his fingers. "Well, it's true."

"So if it's not a big deal, why can't you stop?"

And, well, Peter's got nothing.

"It's not a healthy way to cope," his dad continues smoothly.

"What, like that's something you know a lot about?" Peter freezes and realizes he's about to grab for his free wrist, andfucking fuck but his dad might actually have a point. Again. "Shit. Sorry, I'm a dick. I didn't mean that."

His dad's hand only pauses for a moment. "No, it's fair enough. After the war, I spent fifteen years hunting down Nazis and killing them."

And Peter's got nothing for that, either, though for entirely different reasons.

"I don't regret that they're dead," Erik says, kneading the spot below Peter's left shoulder blade with emphasis, "Any of them. But I do regret the people I pushed away because I couldn't set my revenge aside, particularly your mother."

"Why'd you stop?" Peter stretches his hand again and tries to find something else to fiddle with.

"Killing Nazis? I met Charles."

He tears a hole in the knee of his pajama pants. "But you didn't stop for Mom."

Erik sighs. "It wasn't like that. Fifteen years is a long time, Peter. Charles and I, we—I don't know how much Hank and Alex have told you, but we took down the man who tortured me in Auschwitz, and after that there wasn't anyone I cared about enough to kill."

"Huh." Peter fiddles with the hole in his pants. "That's depressing."

"You can grab my shirt again, if it helps."

Peter jerks his hand away from the ragged tear in his pants and flushes. "What—I'm fine. I don't. Dude, what."

Erik shrugs. The movement jostles Peter, but it doesn't hurt as much as he'd have expected. "Changing a habit is just a matter of redirecting your actions when you find yourself falling into it."

Peter rubs his thumb across the soft, fuzzy fabric of his blanket. "So what'd you redirect to?"

Erik doesn't answer right away. He fidgets as if his own back's bothering him a little, shifts slightly the leg hanging over the side of Peter's mattress while he sits there holding up Peter's weight and working carefully the kinks out of Peter's back.

"Oh," Peter says stupidly. Then, when it hangs in the air, "Hank's taking a long time."

"Not really." Erik shifts again, straightens this time and brings his hands to grip Peter's upper arms and help him sit up straight as well. It aches, but not unbearably, and Peter lets his dad ease him back until he's propped up against several pillows Hank must have set up before he left. "I asked Charles to tell him to wait so we could talk."

Erik stands up and stretches. His back pops, and he groans. Peter's cheeks and forehead feel hot, and he knows it's noticeable because he's so pale. He looks down at his hands, clenched across his stomach, and doesn't look up again.

"I just," he starts, and can't figure out what it is he means to say. He's angry, at Paul Devries for starting this, at himself for fucking up yesterday and slowing things down again, at his dad for being nice to him when he hasn't done anything to earn it. "This sucks."

Erik, for his part, pats his leg. "I know. But harming yourself is only going to make it worse. I want you to stop, and come to me or Charles if you have problems."

And it's not the same thing, exactly, as what he said the night before when he sat next to Peter in that chair all night and held Peter's wrist and listened to Peter talk about the things DeVries did to him. "It's all right," he'd said, over and over, "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

It's not the same thing, but it's close enough.

"I'll try," Peter says with a shrug, and he knows it's not enough but it's honest.

Erik seems satisfied, at least for the moment, though Peter's pretty sure he's not going to let it rest at that for long. He sits back down in the visitor's chair and folds his newspaper up neatly. Hank comes in, then, and he and Erik manhandle Peter out of his t-shirt so Hank can take his temperature from his armpit (he tried it in Peter's mouth once. It did not end well), and he sets Peter up with an IV, and when Peter looks too depressed his dad throws a clean t-shirt at his head. Peter's just grudgingly settled back in his pillow nest with a newer, warmer t-shirt on and grudgingly started in on his nails with the nail clippers Erik too-solemnly hands him when the muscle relaxant hits him.

He nods off halfway through his fourth finger.

He spends most of the morning and afternoon asleep again, with his brief episodes of wakefulness dedicated to eating, visiting the bathroom so he doesn't fucking wet the bed again, and asking how everyone's work is going and falling asleep a few minutes into the explanations.

He has to ask for help to get to the bathroom, he's so sore, though he manages the rest by himself and makes his escort wait outside. It's not as bad as it could be. Hank is as professional about it as any doctor would be, and Alex acts like it's no big deal and a totally matter-of-fact thing. Erik's busy working on some of the renovations off the library, so he only checks in once during the day when Peter's asleep, but Charles stops in and spells Alex when he can tell Peter's close to waking after his post-lunch nap.

Then Peter gets to have a pretty excruciating conversation with a telepath all about his feelings and better ways to deal with trauma, such as talking things out, going for walks, or channeling his negative emotions into productive work—which Peter thinks explains a lot about workaholism and pretty much everyone at the mansion.

He doesn't say that last part out loud, though, for which he is pretty proud. He does make a joke about other, more colorful forms of stress relief, because he can't help himself. Charles looks very unimpressed and starts giving an incredibly condescending answer, because he's Charles (and which, for the record, is totally unfair; Peter's had sex. Ish. Basically). Charles doesn't finish it, though, because he senses something wrong, and Peter spends the next couple of minutes trying to dodge admitting that his dick's apparently stopped working since he got back. He's not entirely sure he succeeds, but Charles drops it, which is close enough that Peter calls it a success.

Charles leaves, finally, after extracting another promise from Peter to try and to go to him if Peter has any trouble.

It's Alex's turn, still, to be on Peter-watching duty for a couple more hours when Charles drives off into the hallway, and he brings with him a hideous, floral electric heating pad for Peter's back, since the drugs have mostly worn off.

It's like lying on a cloud. A warm, wonderful, muscle-soothing cloud that Peter thinks he'll never move off of again. It feels fantastic. The fact that Alex has to waste his time sitting in the visitor's chair, though, that's significantly less awesome.

Alex has a file folder full of papers he's reading through, so at east he's got something to do. Peter doesn't stare while he waits for the constant drowsiness to draw him under again. He doesn't stare very carefully.

"What?" Alex asks without looking up after several minutes.

"Nothing!" Peter redirects his fingers to the edge of his blanket and fiddles with it.

"Mmhmm."

The blanket smells a little like orange juice when he focuses on it. It's so soft and warm, though, Peter doesn't care enough to take it off. He's always run a little colder than everyone else, but now he feels like he froze through in his cell and he's constantly in the process of thawing out.

"Sorry you have to be here," he says eventually. "I know you've got a lot to do."

Alex shrugs. "It's no problem. And it's not your fault, so stop freaking apologizing."

Peter huffs. "Kind of is. I hadn't used my powers yesterday, you wouldn't have to."

A rubber eraser hits his forehead and bounces off onto the blanket.

"You are such a dunce," Alex says. "Yeah, fine, it was stupid of you, but you're not going to use your powers again until Hank says you can, right?" He waits until Peter shakes his head. "So don't worry about it. Just focus on getting better and don't worry about me or Hank or Charles or your dad. We can handle it. It's what we're here for."

"But—"

"No buts. Besides, you're technically the first student here, and looking after Charles' ankle-biters is actually in my contract, so this is literally my job. And it's not pulling me away from work to make me do my work, so quit feeling guilty and get some rest."

Peter can't stop feeling whatever the fuck he's feeling, because people don't work like that, but he does shut up, and it's not long before he drifts back off.

He wakes up from a dream hyperventilating and with Hank's hands shaking his shoulders.

He's shaking and sweating and the nausea and shame that usually lie curled up in the pit of his stomach thread up his throat like a snake.

"Hey," Hank's saying, "Hey, Peter, wake up, it's okay."

Peter jerks up, leans over the side of the bed, and vomits.

It's over quickly; not half a minute later Peter's done, slumped over so the edge of the mattress digs uncomfortably into his stomach and coughing intermittently.

Hank crouches next to him. "All done?"

He still feels sick, but the panic's receding enough that he can handle it. Peter nods and tenses, readying himself to push up with arms that don't feel like they'll hold him—

-and Hank sets his hands under Peter's shoulders and heaves him back up unto his pillows.

"What?" he asks when Peter stares.

Peter takes a breath. "You're really strong for a scrawny guy."

Hank pauses in the middle of moving away, like a scarecrow posing for a still life, and barks a laugh. "Yeah, I've heard. It's my mutation."

"'M I ever going to see it?" Peter asks. "Alex said you go all blue. And furry."

Hank shrugs. He picks up the nightstand and moves it to the side, then sets his hip against Peter's solid oak bed and pushes. The bed moves several inches, sliding across the polished wooden floor easily. Peter grabs the blanket and doesn't puke again at the sudden movement, but it's a close thing.

"Shit, sorry." Hank grabs a bowl from the shelf low on his nightstand and sets it on Peter's stomach. There's a glass half-full of water on it, too, and he hands it over. "Rinse out. You'll feel better. I'm going to go grab a mop and some ginger ale, but I'll just be a second. Do you need anything before I go?"

Peter starts to shake his head, thinks better of it, and goes with, "Nah."

Hank nods and heads out. Peter sits up and reaches back to flip his pillows over.

"Want me to call Erik?" Hank asks, popping his head back in.

Peter's face heats up so much his eyes hurt. "I'm not a little kid."

Hank shrugs again. "I know. I just—it's not childish to feel like shit."

Peter huffs and smacks a pillow down behind his back, and Hank's footsteps fade away down the hall.

It's dark out when Peter looks, but just barely; there are still faint streaks of orange-tinged purple way out on the horizon past the treeline at the edge of the estate. Alex and his dad are working on the renovations off the library, judging by the now-familiar thwacks of Alex holding planks of wood steady against a wall and Erik driving nails through them with his mind.

Erik's clearly checked in on Peter, though; Peter can tell, because the rest of his nails have been trimmed so short he couldn't scrape lint out of his pockets if he wanted to.

It's touching, sort of, once you get past the creepiness. If you can do that.

Peter rinses and spits and tries not to let the smell get to him. It was the feeding again, in the dream. Sitting there bound in the chair, wet hands slipping on his jaw, fingers curling in under his lips and over his teeth because the wooden gag slipped and cut the gums and they had to check for splinters. He'd moved that day, jerked his head to the side when the woman poured the soup down the funnel so she lost her grip on the beaker and dropped it on him, splattering tomato soup in his eyes and on his hair and all over his face. She'd slapped his cheek while he had the entire apparatus still in his mouth: the conical wood gag with the rubber tube snaked through it, reaching up from the funnel she held up above his head, past new-split lips past bleeding gums past scraped-raw tongue and throat, all the way down to his stomach. It jostled when she hit him, slipped around inside him so something in his chest hurt and he choked and choked and threw up so the tube dripped undigested soup when they yanked it out. They couldn't reinsert the tube until he calmed down, and he couldn't calm down, so to save time later they hosed him off while he was still strapped into the chair and left him soaking wet and cold in the frigid room until his muscles cramped from sitting still and stiff and the wet leather bands around his arms chafed.

Peter comes back to himself when the pads of his fingers squish against his palms. He makes a concerted effort to breathe deep, from his diaphragm, like Charles has been teaching him during their morning teas, and grabs the edge of his blanket again to stretch between his fingers.

There's one short, brief moment where he looks at his palms, feels an irritated frustration at the unmarked skin, and wantsto scrape away a strip of skin. It's fleeting, though; a shiver wracks through him, and he tugs the blanket more tightly around his shoulders. He focuses on relaxing his muscle groups as well, another one of Charles' teachings. He doesn't feel warmer, but the room around him comes into clearer focus, and the feeling that something very heavy's sitting on his chest gradually abates.

Hank's got a mop and bucket in one hand and a tray in the other when he comes back in. The tray's not as loaded down as Peter would have expected, but there is the promised glass of ginger ale as well as water, two ham-and-cheese sandwiches, and a familiar hockey-puck sized cake covered in tinfoil.

Peter takes a look at the food, and the pressure on his chest and the tightness in his lungs comes roaring back.

It's not the first time since British Columbia that the thought of eating—of taking something into his mouth and feeling the slimy mess slip down his throat—makes him pause. It is the first time it makes him want to throw up again.

Hank takes away the empty water glass and the bowl with filthy water sloshing around and sets the tray over Peter's lap in its place with a "There you go," and a ruffle of Peter's hair.

Peter's hands feel like ice cubes, but they're sweaty enough he has to wipe them off on his blanket before he picks up the glass of ginger ale.

He tells himself he's being stupid. It's a glass of fucking ginger ale, for fuck's sake; he's safe, he's fine, and everyone who held him in British Columbia is dead. There's absolutely no reason he should be scared of taking a drink of ginger ale.

"You should get started," Hank says after a few seconds. He wrings the mop out in the bucket. "You need to eat something before you fall asleep again."

Peter forces himself to relax the fingers twisted around the blanket and takes another measured breath. Hank's right; the drowsiness is going to kick in in a few minutes, and if he doesn't replace the calories he just lost he's going to push his recovery back. Again.

He finds himself pressing the tips of the fingers of his free hand into his palm again, but there's no pain, nothing he can use to focus on and distract himself with, so when he brings the glass up and take a sip the full force of his attention is on the liquid that slips down his mouth and starts burning its way down his too-tense throat, and he just. He can't. He tries, he tries so hard, but he can't stop himself coughing when he tries to swallow it down, and once he does he's choking, and it doesn't matter where he is or what it is or that he's not soaking wet and strapped to a heavy iron chair, he's just gagging and there's something in his throat and he wants it out, and he jerks forward over his tray and coughs and coughs and tries to spit it all out.

It doesn't, though, doesn't leave him even when he gets his breath under control and wipes his mouth with the napkin Hank hands him. His fingers feel stiff and foreign against his lips, and looking down at the tray makes his stomach flip so he has to take deep, ragged breath after deep, ragged breath to keep from heaving.

Hank, after initially cursing and dropping his mop, rests against the bed and rubs Peter's back, picks the glass up from the bedspread and slides the tray down the bed so Peter doesn't knock it all over.

"Are you still nauseated?" he asks when Peter stops hacking. "Do you feel sick?"

Peter shakes his head. He can still feel his hands on his face. Still feel their hands on him. He swallows a gasp and grabs at the blanket with both hands.

"Was it the texture?" Hank asks. "I can make you something else, but you're going to need to eat it."

Peter jerks at the blanket and hunches up his shoulders. "Can't. I can't. Please—"

Please don't make me, he doesn't ask, because he knows he has to, but when he thinks of trying again his breath comes out in a wheeze.

"Shit," Hank mumbles. He rocks back on his feet and makes to turn away—and Peter shoots out his hand and grabs at Hank's t-shirt because he can't, he can't he can't he can't he can't

"Fuck." Hank leans in so his t-shirt doesn't rip and kneels on the edge of the bed. "Okay. It's okay, Peter. You're okay. Erik!"

Peter can't breathe. His face is hot and his hands are shaking and his heart's pounding like a jackhammer, and he can feelthem touching his mouth so they can put the gag back in, and he can't breathe.

"Peter, you're hyperventilating." Hank sets his hands on Peter's shoulder and rubs his upper arms. "I need you to try to calm your breathing. Just like you and the professor practiced. Come on. You can do it."

Peter nods and takes a breath, follows the slow, intentioned rise and fall of Hank's chest and mirrors it. His breath cuts short, the first time, but Hank says "There you go," and carefully takes another exaggerated breath so Peter can follow along.

And the door to Peter's bedroom slams against the wall.

"What happened?"

Peter jerks when his dad runs in and reflexively yanks his arms in closer to his chest. Of course, he's still got Hank's t-shirt in a death grip in both fists. Hank tips forward; his chest smashes into Peter's head before he can catch himself on the bed. He ducks down to balance himself and his collar, exposed by Peter's hold on his t-shirt, rubs against Peter's cheek, skin to skin. And that's not good.

The next few seconds are kind of a jumble. There's a lot of movement and even more noise, and Peter thinks a lot of the noise is probably him breathing, which is weird because no matter how much he breathes he can't get enough air. Then suddenly his dad's somehow up on the bed behind him, smelling like sweat and sawdust and reaching up to wrap his hands around Peter's wrists and rub his thumbs soothingly over the backs of Peter's hands. He's saying Peter's name, saying it's okay, saying everything's fine and he's safe, and Hank, still holding himself up with hands on the mattress on either side of Peter's hips, interjects here and there, telling Peter to breathe, telling him he can do it, saying he's going to be fine.

There's still too much everything, too much everywhere, too much loudness and brightness and being all around him, but Hank's glasses bumping against his head and Erik's hands around his wrists are firm and steady and grounding enough that he can focus on them.

"It's okay," his dad says. "Easy now. I'm right here."

He takes a short, aborted breath, holds it for a quick second, and lets it out.

"There you go," Hank says. "That's it."

Peter takes another, and then another again. His head starts to clear, just a bit, the dizziness starting to recede and the room around him slowly sliding back into solid tangibility. He can hear his dad breathing, feel Hank's steady respiration underneath his fingers, hear the steady drip-drip-drip of the IV that's still attached to the needle in the back his right hand. There's a familiar squeak of wheels turning on wood, then, and a calm voice from the doorway.

"What's this all about, then?"

Peter takes shuddered breath after shuddered breath, and eventually the shuddering stops and the breathing just becomes breathing. He feels heavy, suddenly, and empty. His head's buzzing and light. He lets it fall forward so the crown of it touches Hank's collar bones.

"There we are," Charles says a little later. "Well done, Peter. Easy does it. Now, how about you let go of Hank and we can work this out, hmm?"

Peter nods against Hank's neck. He means to let go, he does, but his hands are stiff. "Sorry," he says. His breath hitches. "Just a—just a sec."

The seconds tick by. Eventually, Erik moves his hands up and curls them up under Peter's, pressing his thumb across Peter's knuckles so Peter's fingers straighten out and away from the soft cotton t-shirt. Hank straightens up and stands as soon as he's loose, but instead of leaving he reaches for Peter's right hand and checks the IV. He smooths the tape out and sets Peter's hand down on Peter's knee when he's done.

His t-shirt's yanked all out of shape, and there's a ragged tear near the collar.

"Sorry," Peter says again. He curls his hands in on themselves.

Hank's lips twitch up, and he punches Peter very lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it." He does back up then, heads out with a quick look to Charles. "Call me when you're done."

"You know where my good scotch is," Charles answers.

Then Hank's gone, the door shuts behind him, and Peter's alone with Erik and Charles.

Peter lets his dad prop him up on some pillows at the head of the bed before Erik moves the tray to the nightstand and strips the ginger ale-splattered blanket and sheets off the bed. He dumps them on the window seat and grabs some more from the closet near the window, which last time Peter had poked around held old coats and boxes and boxes of books.

Charles looks around and takes in the mop and bucket. "Nightmares again?"

Peter draws his knees up to his chest, because it's starting to get really fucking chilly without his blankets, and rests his chin on them. "Yeah."

Erik unfolds the top sheet at the end of the bed and tucks the corners under the mattress with as little movement as possible.

"All right," Charles says. He wheels himself up so he's level with Peter. "So, what set off the anxiety attack?"

Peter grabs the edge of his t-shirt and pulls at the thread on the hem. "I need to eat," he starts, and the rest of the words are in his throat but he can't get them all the way out.

"It's all right," Charles says, and Peter realizes some of his anxiety must be bleeding out. "You're having trouble eating?"

"Yeah." Peter doesn't want to think about it—just wants to go to sleep and wake up well—but Charles is an actual telepath and not eating could actually endanger Peter's life, so it's going to come out one way or another. "I can't. I keep remembering the—Devries. Meal times."

His fleece blanket suddenly starts pulling away from his shoulders. Peter grabs for it, but his dad's stronger and, somehow, faster, and it slips off him entirely.

It's absolutely freezing in the room without it.

For all of four seconds, which is about how long it takes Erik to snatch away the dirty blanket, roll it up into a ball and toss it in the direction of the pile of other blankets, and pick up the even warmer, larger goose down quilt from a chair and drape it over Peter's shoulders. Then he grabs the tray from the window seat, sets it on the bed a foot away from Peter's feet, and sits back down on the edge of the bed at Peter's side because he's a surprisingly touchy-feely weirdo.

"May I look?" Charles asks when Erik's settled. Charles puts his fingers up to his own forehead. "I won't touch you, and you don't have to see."

Peter shrugs and tries to avoid looking at the tray on his bed directly. The thread on the hem of his t-shirt breaks and starts to unravel. "You need to, right?"

"No." Charles leans up and rests his hand on the bed, though he doesn't touch Peter or move as if he means to. "But I think I can help you better if I look, and this might go more easily for you. But it's not necessary right now, and I'm not going to force my way into your mind if you don't want me in it."

Peter shrugs again and weighs how much he doesn't want to talk about it against having Charles in his mind. "It's okay. It's easier, I guess."

His dad shifts, leans back against the pillows and sets his arm gently over Peter's shoulders. Charles leans back in his wheelchair, sharp blue eyes on Peter, and brings two fingers up to his temple.

Peter doesn't have time to tense before he feels the panic at the edge of his mind waking up again as something slips into it like a mouse through a hole in the wall. Then that's gone, and Peter's in his mom's living room, sitting with his back to the couch in a warm, snug splash of sunlight, holding his hand out over a piece of cardboard so Wanda can try out her new glitter nail polish on him. She's concentrating so hard her tongue's sticking out, but his fingers are liberally coated with sticky polish from his knuckles up. Deep Purple's spinning on the record player, they've finished Wanda's school work early for the day with a perfect score on her spelling quiz, and there's a box of Oreos and juice he set up earlier in the kitchen for whenever Wanda finishes up.

Then that's gone, too, and Peter's back on his bed in Westchester with cold hands and an empty stomach.

"Oh, Peter," Charles says.

Peter looks down at his hands and bites his lip. "It's fine," he says.

"No, my dear boy, it is anything but."

Peter's hands blur when he looks at them, but he blinks, faster than a normal human can, and clears his sight. Charles does reach out, then, and squeezes Peter's knee. "Peter, we always knew there would be rough patches while you were recovering. I won't say it will be easy, but I give you my word. We will get you through this."

Peter nods, because Charles looks like he's not going on until Peter responds somehow, and Peter doesn't know what to say. He doesn't exactly have a lot of choices aside from getting through it, other than actually starving to death, even if he has no fucking clue how they're going to do it.

"Unfortunately," Charles continues, "There's no time to ease you into it tonight. You're going to fall asleep soon, whether you want to or not, and you need to eat something before then or you could be in for some trouble tonight. But we'll be right here, Peter, whatever you need."

It sounds so easy when Charles says it like that. It's such a stupid thing, Peter thinks. It's been a stressful couple of days, and he's been so emotional. All he has to do is pick up a goddamn sandwich and eat it. Maybe it will be that easy.

It's not.

Charles has to help him with his breathing, leading him through the exercises they do in the mornings, before Peter even takes a bite. Just setting up the tray on his lap's enough to get him tense again, any lingering calm from the good memory Charles gave him stripped away. The first bite he takes, the bread and the cheese stick to the roof of his mouth and the ham slips along his tongue, this disgusting, slimy foreign thing, and he gags and almost throws up again.

It takes almost half an hour for Peter to get through one sandwich and his Ding Dong. Charles is murmuring encouragement by his side, and Peter's got a death grip on his dad's free hand. Peter thought it might get easier once he started, but it gets harder, if anything, and that's before the drowsiness seriously starts to kick in. The humiliating ordeal finally ends when he loses the fight against sleep and dozes off on his dad mid-chew. Charles wakes him up enough to swallow, and Peter clocks out to low murmurs and a cuff around his wrist when Hank comes in to take his blood pressure.

His muscles still ache when he wakes up, and his hands are shaking, and he's fucking freezing.

It's Hank sitting next to him, which throws Peter until he hears work boots stomping on the floor above him.

"Your dad's working with Alex," is the first thing that Hank says when he sees Peter's awake. Then, "I just let Charles know you're up. How are you feeling?"

Like shit isn't a polite response, and Hank's been nothing but unbelievably kind, so Peter keeps it in. But he's pretty sure Hank gets what Peter's means when he says, "I dunno. Like I did in the bunker."

"When you'd wake up there?" Hank asks. He 'hmmm's when Peter nods and looks very serious. "Right. I need to take your temperature, but I'll be quick."

He has Peter shrug the sleeve off of his IV-free hand and bunch that side of his shirt on his neck instead of taking it all off. It's still cold enough that Peter's teeth chatter, and the thermometer against his skin feels like Hank just took it out of the freezer, but at least it's over quickly. Hank reads the thermometer without comment and holds Peter's sleeve up until Peter can get his arm back into it. Peter's clumsy enough that it takes a couple of tries. Then Hank makes him actually get off the bed and step up onto a scale which someone moved in next to his nightstand while he was asleep.

Peter's head swims when he stands, and his legs don't feel incredibly steady. "This is new," he says offhand when he gets up on it, arms wrapped around his chest.

Hank moves the weights on the scale until they balance and makes an unhappy sound. Peter doesn't look.

"Yeah," Hank says. "Charles thought it would stress you out, and we didn't think it was necessary."

He ushers Peter off the scale after a second and doesn't let him lie back down; he sits Peter on the edge of the bed with his feet hanging over the side so Hank can take a proper blood pressure measurement.

Charles comes in when the cuff's still tightening around his arm. He's got a tray on his lap with toast, bacon, eggs, a glass of orange juice, and one of Hank's shakes. Peter's stomach lurches at the sight, even though he's hungry enough to feel light-headed.

If Charles notices anything, he doesn't mention it; he parks himself by the bookcase nearest the door until Hank gets Peter propped up against a stack of pillows, three blankets tucked up against his waist. Hank sets the tray over Peter's lap before he heads out.

"I'll be two doors down," he says as he shuts the door, which is thoughtful of him, if not optimistic of how breakfast is going to go.

Charles, at least, looks as disgustingly optimistic as ever. He says a cheery 'Morning!' and squeezes Peter's shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

Peter shrugs. Just as shitty as earlier, except colder and his calves hurt. "Tired."

Charles nods. "How's the anxiety?"

Peter shrugs again and doesn't look at the tray on his lap. The smell wafts up to him, and even as his stomach cramps from hunger he has to fight to keep from gagging.

Charles nods again, as if he can feel Peter's anxiety. He probably can, at that; he's explained a bit about the difference between reading and running into projecting, and Peter's sure he's bleeding stress all over the place.

"We're going to start off easy," Charles says. "I want you to start by picking one item on your try and looking at it for a couple of minutes while we practice our breathing exercises. I'll keep time."

Of course that's his idea of easy. It's pointless to argue, though, Peter is more than well aware, and Peter doesn't really want to; he just wants to be able to eat again without reacting like a three-year-old who's scared of the dark.

He picks the milkshake and fixes his eyes on it.

"All right," Charles says when he sees Peter grip the top blanket in his fists. "Time's starting now. So let's take a deep breath—deep breath, Peter—for a count of eight, count it out in your head, breathe deep, feel it filling your lungs. Good. Now hold it, hold it, hold it, good lad, now let it out, slowly, take your time, you've got it. There you go. And again."

They go again, and again, and again until the full two minutes are up. Charles alternately leads by example and acts as the poshest one-man cheer team in history. It does help, quite a bit; Peter still feels tense, but it doesn't overwhelm him. It's just a glass on a tray, and nothing's going to happen.

Next, Charles has Peter wrap his hand around the glass, and they repeat two minutes of breathing. Peter can feel his heartbeat spike at first, but it ebbs again after several breaths.

"All right," Charles says when he calls time. "Well done. Now, I wish we had more time for the next step, but you really need to eat something, so let's give it a try. Do you think you can hold the glass up for two minutes?"

Peter takes a deep breath, counts it out, holds it, and counts it out again. "I don't—I don't know."

Charles pats his knee. "Not a problem. All right then, right to it. I'm going to hold the glass up for you, and we're going to try breathing while you hold the straw in your mouth."

Deep breath in. Hold it. Deep breath out. Deep breath in. Hold it. Deep breath out.

"Right," Peter says.

"It's all right," Charles says. He reaches up and rubs Peter's back. "I'll be right here, Peter. It's going to be all right."

Peter takes a breath and doesn't hyperventilate. Gold star to him. "Yeah," he says. His next breath catches, and he bites down a laugh. "Sorry I'm—this is so stupid."

Charles sighs. "Peter, you're a very brave, kind, intelligent young man, but you're every bit as thick-headed as your father, God help you. There's nothing stupid or petty or embarrassing about what you're going through, all right? You went through something no one ever should, and you've proven to be remarkably resilient. There was bound to be some fallout, but you're going to get through it. We'll be here, every step."

"Yeah." His hand's sweaty, so he rubs it over the blanket before he runs it through his hair. It's long—his hair, that is—and he realizes he hasn't gotten it cut since before Devries. "I just. I thought I was getting better."

"You are. You will. But recovery's not always straightforward, and you're going to hit rough patches sometimes. So let's get you past this one, hmm?"

Peter nods. It comes off jerky, but he takes another breath and sets his hand back down at the edge of the blanket.

Charles picks up the glass but doesn't hold it up right away. "Just in case," he says, "We can try this as many times as you need. If you can't get it right away, it's all right. We might have to try some other ways to buy us some time, but there's no failing, all right?"

"Right," Peter says. His head feels fuzzy.

Charles smiles, takes a breath, and holds the glass up to Peter's mouth. Peter leans forward and bites the straw between his teeth.

"Okay," Charles says a few seconds later. "All right, Peter, now let's try breathing."

Peter makes it.

He almost doesn't; almost spits it out and has another panic attack, but Charles lets him grab on to his free hand and talks him through it, leads him through breathing in and out through his nose and relaxing the muscles in his neck and back and shoulders.

Instead of moving on after two minutes, Charles sets the glass down for half a minute and rests his hand, then he puts the glass back up and they try the same thing again.

Peter ends up sitting still with the straw in his mouth for eight minutes. He's almost relaxed by the end of it, able to focus on the texture of the blankets and the weight of the tray on his knee and the solid, clammy grip of Charles' hand on his. It's not great, but it's not terrible, either, and he thinks it's actually going to be okay.

Then Charles says, "That's excellent. Now try taking a small sip."

And Peter does, and for a micro-second it actually is fine, it's okay, and then the cold, slimy liquid slips, fatty and sweet, over his tongue. He coughs close-mouthed and holds his breath.

"It's all right," Charles starts saying, doubtless leading to We can take a break and try again.

Except he doesn't get to it, because when Peter coughs he accidentally swallows some, and the thick fluid slipping down his throat is too much too fast.

He's already vomiting when he leans forward, so it trails down his chin, down his t-shirt, over the blankets bunched at his waist, and onto the tray which he leans over.

"Damn it," Charles says, then, without raising his voice, "Hank, we're going to need you."

It doesn't last long this time, either, though Peter throws up until there's nothing lest. He's dizzy as fuck when he finishes, and his hands won't hold him up. Charles has to lean forward and grab him, one hand on his back and one hand firm on his chest. Charles helps him back up, props Peter up against the pillows and leans back in his chair without touching anything with his hand. Which, yep, has vomit on it.

"I'm sorry," Peter mumbles. There are tears trickling from his eyes, and when he coughs his throat burns.

Charles rubs his shoulder with his clean hand. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

Peter's hands shake. He runs them over his hair, and his fingers bump against his scalp. His dad comes in. Erik's sweating and wearing a pair of goggles he's pushed up on his head. He crosses the room and comes around the bed and sits down on the edge of it instead of pulling off the blankets and helping Peter up.

"Peter," Charles says, "I'm sorry about this, but you can't eat anything, and if you don't eat you're going to go into hypoglycemic shock. I'm going to put you to sleep in a minute, and I'll make it so you won't be able to feel it once it's in, but Hank's going to come in and fix you up with a nasogastric feeding tube—"

"What." Peter grabs his t-shirt. His hands slip on it, and he looks down and sees vomit, on his shirt and on his hands. Oh. Right. He lets go and tries to wipe his hands off on the blanket, but they're shaking and it just smears everywhere, and the IV line still attached to his hands whips around and smacks his shoulder, and he can't breathe, he can't—

"Here." His dad's voice comes surprisingly close to his ear, and Peter freezes, long enough for Erik to grab one of his wrists, pull his hand back, and press the corner of his flannel overshirt into it.

The fabric's warm. Peter curls his fingers around it and it's there, soft and worn from use. He grabs onto it, holds it, reaches back with his other hand and grabs the edge on the other side. One of the buttons digs into his palm, and it gives Peter enough focus to take a breath.

"And it will give us time to work through it even if it takes a while," Charles is saying.

"Okay," Peter says. He can barely hear it when he does, which is weird because he can very clearly hear Hank's footsteps coming down the hall. He feels light, suddenly, and numb and heavy all over from his toes to his tongue, and there's a rushing sound growing steadily louder in his ears. "I don't—hey. Erik. I can't—"

He sees, in vision that's quickly desaturating, Charles raise the first two fingers of his clean hand up to his temple

Someone's jostling his feet.

"Bug?" Peter asks, though why Wanda would be playing with his feet is beyond him. Little kids are weird.

The jostling stops, and something very warm slides up against his socked feet and doesn't move away. "Peter?"

Peter opens his eyes. It's pretty dark. The roof above him doesn't have any posters, and out of the corners of his eyes he can see the hulking shadows of bookcases looming against the walls in the dark. His dad moves up a couple of feet and sets another of what Peter now recognizes as hot water bottles on Peter's belly.

"Hey," Peter says. His mouth feels heavy. There's something—something wrong. He can't remember. "Time's it?"

Erik shuffles the last two hot water bottles he's holding and sets them under Peter's armpits. It's funny, because Peter's arms weigh him down like lead so he almost thinks Erik won't be able to move them, but of course his dad can manipulate lead, so it's all good.

"It's just past four." Erik brings up a bunch of blankets piled up below Peter's feet and draws them up to Peter's shoulders, and it's so warm Peter suddenly realizes he's been shivering. Erik moves Peter's arm so the one with the IV lies on top of the covers. At least he's wearing long sleeves. Something fuzzy. Feels like one of Charles' hideous sweaters, but it's worn in enough it's not scratchy. So that's fine.

But there's something else wrong, Peter knows. Something he's forgotten. Something—oh, right.

"But s'dark."

His dad doesn't laugh at him, which is a definite sign that something else is wrong. Erik Lensherr is the sort of asshole who'd laugh at someone coming out of anesthesia unless they were, like, dying or paralyzed, so Peter's befuddlement should merit at least a chuckle.

"It's four in the morning," Erik says then. He settles down into the chair by the bed and grabs Peter's hand, careful around the IV port. "You went into hypoglycemic shock and had a seizure before Hank started. You've been asleep since."

His dad sounds about as good as Peter feels, and he sets his head down on the bed next to Peter's stomach when he stops talking.

Peter takes his other arm out into the cold air and tries to reach over and pat the guy on the shoulder in solidarity, because Erik's old and boring enough something lame like that will make him feel better. His motor control's lacking, though, for some reason, so Peter ends up smacking his dad on the cheek with the palm of his hand instead.

"What," Erik asks, "Are you doing?"

Peter exerts a supreme effort and gets his hand off his dad's face. There's a little bit of spit on the tips from where his fingers landed on Erik's mouth, but he has neither the fucks nor the energy to be bothered to wipe them off on the blanket.

"Sorry." Peter lets himself think, for a second, about the thing he doesn't want to think about, but he's actually too tired to panic, which is kind of a refreshing change. "D'you—did Hank. Did Hank do the thing."

"Yes, Peter, Hank did the thing." His dad squeezes his hand. When he breathes, warm air from his mouth ruffles the hair on Peter's arm. "It's hooked up to a pump on your left. It's taped to your cheek and runs from your left nostril to your stomach, and it's the only reason you're alive right now, so you're not to touch it. You shouldn't feel it, at least."

Peter lies still and tries to focus on his throat and his nose for a second. "I can't."

"Charles will be very pleased with himself."

"You mean he's not always?"

That, at least, does get a chuckle. "I'll be sure to let him know you think so."

"You're such a dick." Peter blinks and lets his eyes rest for a moment. Turns out his eyes are quite tired, and he doesn't bother opening them again. But he cant just leave it there. "But you're not a. You're a good. Umm. You."

"Go to sleep, Peter," his dad says.

And Peter says, "Hmmkay," and does.

The next time he wakes up, there's bright, mid-morning sunlight streaming through the windows. Peter's not hooked up to his IV, though there's a port taped to his hand. On the other side of his bed there is a weird, spindly metal frame with an IV-like bag full of what looks like baby formula hooked up to a pump. A tube snakes out from it and leads towards Peter until it disappears below the line of sight of Peter's left eye.

It's Hank in the visitor's chair, this time. Hank's looking away, hunched over a notebook who's filled with what looks like physics and chemistry equations and little arrows pointing to scribbles like 'Cerebro 2.1' and 'Stealth Jet!' and 'C idea polymer fabric, suits'. Peter decides to take the opportunity to check out his new accessory and very stealthily moves his hand towards his face.

It's not halfway there when Hank's fingers snap closed around his wrist.

"No," Hank says.

Peter looks from his wrist to Hank's head, which is still turned away, and myriad, fantastic possibilities bloom in Peter's head. "Bro. Do you know kung fu?"

Hank's amazing eyebrows do strange, caterpillar things until his mouth works. "No. No, of course I don't. You're just—how do you feel?"

Peter shrugs. Well. He tries to shrug. He gets a quarter of the way through it and abandons the plan because, hey, it takes too much energy. "I'm good. Can I see it?"

Hank narrows his eyes at him, but after a second he looks satisfied at whatever he sees in Peter's face and reaches for a mirror from the nightstand.

It's...weird.

It's just a normal-looking plastic tube that, just like Erik described it, snakes out of Peter's nostril, is taped flat to his cheek with an opaque strip, and curves up into the air after that. There's a port of some sort a few inches up.

"We can disconnect it there," Hank explains when he sees Peter looking at it, "And hook it behind your ear when you're up so you don't have to drag the stand with you."

Peter hands the mirror back and lets his hand drop onto his chest. "That's disgusting."

"Do you feel like throwing up?"

"No." And he doesn't, which is surprising, though he doesn't feel entirely right either.

"Good." Hank sets the mirror on the night stand and turns back to his papers.

"If I threw up, would the vomit go up the tube?"

"Some of it, yes," Hank says. Then, on seeing Peter's face, "I can tell you about how it works, if you want."

Peter looks at the small bump on his nose and the edge of the tube, which he can just see on his cheek if he looks straight down. "Uh. No thanks."

"Mmhmm."

The water bottles under his arms are gone, but under the blankets there's a lukewarm one on his belly and another near his feet. Peter curls his toes against it and sighs happily. There's a slight pull on his thigh when he moves that he vaguely recognizes as tape on a catheter line, but he sets it aside for later because warm toes are fantastic enough that he can't bring himself to care.

"Hey," he says eventually when he realizes he's probably going to drift off again soon. "Thanks for. Keeping me from, uh. Dying. And. Shit."

Hank makes an unhappy noise and scribbles something on his notebook. "Don't worry about it. And please don't mention it. Again. Your dad's already—oh, aluminum."

Peter opens his eyes, because that's interesting enough to put sleep off for a minute or two. "My dad's already what?"

"Hmm?" Hank bites on the end of his pen and glances up. He looks. Pink. "Erik? He was just happy you're fine. Don't worry about it."

"What," Peter says, "Did he hug you?" He chuckles.

It trails off into a very loud silence.

"Oh my God." Peter picks his head up and, yes, Hank's studiously leaning over his notebook again, but he's turned an incredible, blotchy red. "Oh my God. I can't believe I was unconscious."

Hank does not look up.

"Was it a bear hug? Manly pat on the back? Did you kiss and make up? Was Alex there? You know he'll tell me—"

"It's none of your business. Now go back to sleep, you little freak."

Peter knows Hank doesn't mean it, because, besides the fact that there's absolutely no heat to it, Hank is probably the nicest of all of them (Peter definitely included), and Hank did just save his life sort of anyway, so he shuts his mouth and shuts his eyes and pictures sheep jumping over fences one by one.

But he files it away to ask Alex about later.

The next time he wakes up, however, it's not Alex at his side.

"What," he starts to ask. He cuts off when he's pulled up and crushed in a hug. "Mom. Hey."

He tries to hug her back and accidentally whacks her on the back with his arms instead, but she just holds him closer.

"Sorry," he says. "'M a little messed up right now."

"Who are you," his mom asks against his shoulder, "And what have you done with my son?"

"Hilarious."

He has to ask her to let him go eventually, because hugging people is apparently hard and tiring work now, because of fucking course it is. She helps ease him back down onto the pillows and then does the 'stroke the hair back from the forehead, look down misty-eyed, engage in lingering maternal touches that mean I love you' to a length and degree that Erik can only dream of—but then, she's had practice.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier," she tells him eventually. "I was out in the field, so they weren't able to get hold of me until the evening. I would have been here if I'd known."

Peter shrugs. "'S all right. Time you got here there wouldn't have been much to see, except me sleeping."

"Still." She leans down and kisses his forehead, the Mom Signature Move. "I'm so happy you're all right, Pietro."

Peter doesn't squirm, because he is a caring, sensitive soul with great empathy for other people and also because he doesn't really have the energy, but things have been pretty emotional lately, and he doesn't want to have the conversation this is leading to just then. So he looks around the room instead and spots a familiar pair of shiny purple, double-knotted size 3 sneakers by the door. "You brought Wanda?"

"She's practicing her powers with Charles, but she'll come by when she's done. She's missed you."

"I've missed her too." Peter grabs the end of the sleeve of his sweater and rubs it between his fingers and his palms. "Is she—how is she? Erik said you got her a—a tutor?"

Magda cocks her head. "Charles didn't tell you? He found a mutant schoolteacher with Cerebro and got her to tutor Wanda for the summer. We're hoping she'll have enough control over her powers to go to school once it starts, and we're looking at our options in case she doesn't."

"Good." The stitching on the hem starts to give. Peter rubs the loose threads between his thumb and forefinger, back and forth and back and forth. "That's good. She should have friends her age."

"I'm sorry you didn't," his mother says softly.

"'S not your fault." Peter starts shrugging and gets interrupted by a full-body yawn that demands his attention for several seconds. "Anyway, I'm fine."

"And there's my son again."

"Whatever," Peter says. His eyes are dry, so he shuts them for a second.

Somehow he forgets to open them again.

Waking up during recovery is like figuring out how to swim in the middle of drowning; each time you break the surface you can take a longer breath, your head clears a bit, and you're just a little more aware of your surroundings.

This time, Peter's first indication he's about to return to reality is a pair of two poky points of discomfort on his torso, as if Hank's holding two pencils close in each hand and pressing the eraser ends down against him. One holds steady on Peter's stomach, and the other sort of hops in a straight line down his sternum.

"Space Commander!" says a familiar, high-pitched voice. "The Martian soil is good for growing! We will plant corn."

Alternatively, someone is playing Astronaut Barbies on his chest.

"Hey, Bug," Peter says.

Space Commander Patty and Lieutenant Stacy abruptly depart from his chest with a squeak and a warm, heavy weight drops onto him instead, arms akimbo. He brings his own arms up, once he catches his breath, and wraps them around Wanda's back in a hug. When he opens his eyes, there's a shock of fluffy red hair frothing just above his collar bones and shivering delicately every time he breathes.

He brings his left hand up and pokes at it.

Wanda doesn't rear up or smack at his hand, though; she squirms so her chin digs into the ribs over his heart. Her hands drop the dolls by his shoulders and curl in his sleeves. "Mom says you're really sick."

Movement out of the corner of his eye makes Peter look up to see Hank, sprawled on the window seat, fiddling with some small piece of machinery with a screwdriver and carefully ignoring them.

"I was," Peter says, "But I'm a lot better now. Everyone's working really hard at fixing me up."

Wanda huffs against his collarbones. "Sandy's mom got really sick last year and had a nose tube too and she died."

Something metallic snaps in the window seat, and Hank mutters a muted, "Damn it."

Peter puts his arm back around Wanda and rubs her back. "I'm not going to die, Wanda. Hank and the Professor are helping me get better. That's what the tube's for."

"Are you sure?"

Peter shifts slightly to his left, and Space Commander Patty's hard plastic hand digs into the meat of his arm. Peter bites in a curse and nudges her away so he can comfortably move his hand up and run his fingers through Wanda's hair. "Yeah, Bug, I'm sure."

"Good." Wanda does sit up then, pushes herself up with her hands on his ribs, fifty pounds of pressure pushing down painfully from her palms. She moves back to her former position, sitting close enough to the edge of the bed that Peter automatically grabs at the front of her t-shirt and slides over so she has more space.

The effort leaves him panting and bereft of the energy to rescue Lieutenant Stacy, who's gotten trapped under his shoulder. Hank, he notices, is half-standing. Peter turns to him. "Hey, can you help me sit up?"

Hank does, with a certain amount of grumbling about 'only twenty minutes', which is irritating (and not just because Peter suspects that's about how long he can stay awake), but there are two silver linings: first, twenty minutes is plenty of time for some poker, and second, when Peter moves he realizes he's no longer catheterized—even if he's pretty sure they've got him in briefs with the pads for leaking he didn't even need the last time. But knowing Hank thinks he's with it enough for bathroom visits means he'll probably be up and walking in a day or two, which is pretty great, considering.

Hank rescues Lieutenant Stacy, grabs them the cards from the nightstand, and retires to the window seat. Wanda, for her part, shuffles just the way Peter's taught her and deals.

"Mom says you're very fragile," she says angelically, "So I'm gonna go easy on you."

She kicks Peter's ass four times before he drifts back off. He's very proud.

He drifts in and out the rest of the day. Charles is there, one time. He actually hugs Peter and tells him to 'Never do that again,' as if Peter had a seizure on purpose. It's a little weird, but heartfelt. Peter figures he'd better get used to it; judging from the way Charles and his dad have settled down (into the sort of boring, solid relationship the Maximoff's eighty-year-old married-for-sixty-years-and-counting neighbors have), the dude's going to be in Peter's life for a long time to come.

It could be worse.

Anyway, Charles gives a very earnest speech about how Peter can (and will!) recover and come back stronger, etc., and he leads Peter through some breathing exercises and promises to restart their cognitive sessions—to help Peter stop having nightmares and work past the panic attacks—as soon as Peter's a little more rested.

His dad's there, next, still looking basically like hell but flipping through a book and sipping from a glass of scotch as if he's a trust fund asshole whiling away another dull evening.

There's something Peter wants to say to him, but it sticks to the roof of his mouth in the little space between his tongue and his lips and leaves him looking stupid when he can't quite stutter it out. Erik mostly ignores him, though, until he gets himself together again, so it works out.

Peter doesn't actually need help to sit up this time, which is exciting, and he's with it enough that catching sight of the feeding tube out of the corner of his eye makes his hands sweat, which is not exciting. He's pretty sure his dad notices, because Erik shuts the book and asks him if he's going to want a haircut, which leads to Erik scoffing about hippies and Deadheads and Peter poking fun at Erik's cravat (because—a cravat? Really?).

They trade insults until Wanda comes in from supper.

She makes herself comfortable on Peter's lap and challenges Erik to a game of chess against her and Peter. It's nice. Really nice, actually. Chess isn't really Peter's thing, because it's just so damn slow, but Wanda loves it so they play it twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays after lunch. Wanda's gotten pretty good, actually. His dad still stomps over them both, because 'taking it easy' is a phrase entirely foreign to Erik, but Wanda puts up a good show.

They're four moves from checkmate when Hank comes in with an opaque plastic box and heads to the left of the bed.

"Peter, you're squishing me." Wanda squirms in his grip, and Peter eases off with muttered apologies and a kiss to her head. He looks up, but Erik's focused on the chess board, and Peter tries to concentrate on the pieces.

He manages it for about thirty seconds, which is how long it takes Hank to disconnect the tube from the feeding pump at the free-hanging port and connect it instead to a fat, oversized syringe filled with some sort of blended sludge that he's holding. Hank's finger slips on the syringe when he starts depressing it, and the thin tube jerks and pulls against the tape on Peter's cheek, yanking it enough that the tube bobs against Peter's nose where it goes in.

And Peter can't.

Three things happen very quickly: First, Peter grabs for the tube, panic overriding sense so his mind is screaming at him toget it out. Second, Hank drops the tube and syringe on a bookshelf and lunges for Peter with a curse. He's too slow, but it doesn't matter, because, third, Peter's hand freezes an inch from his face. There's a thin metal bracelet encircling his wrist, and it holds his hand in a fixed spot in the air and won't let him move.

"Hank," his dad says with a jerk of his head to Peter. He leans over and grabs Wanda, picking her up off the bed and settling her on his hip. "Peter needs a minute, Mausi, so how about we go find some dessert, hmm?"

Wanda's asking something when Erik carries her out and shuts the door, but Peter can't make the words out. The bracelet drops away from his wrist when his dad leaves, but Hank's got hold of him by then. He wraps one hand around both of Peter's wrists and holds them away from his face with seemingly no effort. Peter curls his fingers into the sleeve of Hank's jacket and takes a breath.

"There you go," Hank says. Peter brings his knees up to his chest, sending the chess board clattering to the floor, and rests his forehead on them. Hank sits down on the bed in front of him. "Just breathe, Peter." He reaches up and squeezes Peter's shoulder with his free hand.

Peter focuses on the warm touch on his shoulder and the soft, worn knit of the fabric he's clutching onto and doesn't think about the plastic he can't feel running down his throat. His breathing slows, and the panic crushing his chest lets go, little by little.

"There you go," Hank repeats. "I'm going to let go of your hands, but you can't take it out, all right?" He takes his other hand off of Peter's shoulder first, though, and there's a rustling sound. "Here." He straightens his fingers and yanks his arm out of his sleeve, and Peter's left with his fingers twisted in the sleeve of an empty jacket.

Peter lets his hands drop and rubs his thumbs across the soft material. The mattress wobbles as Hank steps back to the bookshelf near the stand that holds the feeding bag and pump. Peter doesn't look up, but Charles told him how it works earlier; the pump provides continuous feeding, but Hank comes in several times a day with some extra food, because they don't make pumps that can manage a third of what Peter needs. It's just that Peter's never been awake for it before.

The line wobbles a bit, but Peter bites his lip and breathes through it. It's not too bad—at least not until Hank flushes the tube with water when he's done, before he hooks it back up to the pump. The water's cold, and though Charles managed, somehow, to make Peter's brain ignore the sensation of the plastic tube running down his esophagus, Peter feels the chill travel up his nose and down his throat as his water flows through it.

There's a loud tearing sound, and Peter peeks over his knees to realize he's ripped the sleeve of Hank's jacket in half.

"Don't worry about it," Hank says.

"Sorry." His fingers are cold. He tangles them back up in the jacket and squeezes his eyes shut. He's not cold. He's not. He's warm and dry and sitting safe in a bed in Westchester, not soaking wet and strapped to a chair in British Colombia.

The feeding tube jerks again as Hank hooks it back up to the line from the feeding pump, though it doesn't swing for long; Peter's pretty sure Hank grabs it and holds it still. It doesn't help much, because Peter's full-body shivering now, but it's nice.

It does help, a little, when Hank wraps a fleece blanket around his shoulders. "You're all set for now."

Peter nods jerkily. "Do you—d'you know. How much longer—"

Hank sighs and sits back down on the bed. "It depends on how long it takes you to get back to your normal caloric intake, orally. Charles said a couple weeks, maybe."

Two weeks.

Peter breathes very carefully, taking it in, holding it, letting it out. In, holding, out. In, holding, out.

"He said I didn't deserve to eat like a human." He feels a little dizzy and doesn't think about talking before he starts. "He said I hadn't earned it."

"Yeah, well, he was a stupid, sadistic asshole." The mattress shifts again, and suddenly Hank's arms are around his shoulders. "You know that, right?"

Peter breathes in. Peter breathes out. Peter nods, eventually.

"Good," Hank says. He lets go, then, with a very manly back pat—and just in time, too, as the bedroom door swings open and Peter smells his mom's perfume.

His chest and arms and fingers are still trembling from the cold that's only in his mind, and he thinks if he catches sight of the tube right then he'll puke, so he keeps his eyes shut and his hands in the jacket and his head buried against his knees, but he does lean up against his mom when she comes up and pulls him in.

"It's all right, Pietro," she murmurs against his head. She rubs his back and pushes his hair away from his forehead without touching his face. "I'm here."

He falls asleep against her, eventually.

He dreams of the training game where they filled up a bathtub with water and held him under. He hadn't been that strong by then, two weeks in, and the woman working for Devries had superstrength; she'd put her hand on Peter's chest and bear down like a hundred pounds of weight, and when Devries gave the sign she would grip the front of Peter's t-shirt and haul him out. Devries would be waiting, sitting dry and comfortable on a chair next to the tub, and he'd reach down and lay his hands on Peter's face and make him feel warm and loved and grateful for the chance to learn his place.

In his dream, though, Devries never tells her to let up, and she holds him down, hot hand pressing down on his chest and holding him under while he flails his arms and punches at hers and tries to grab at air that's only six or seven inches away.

"Peter," someone says. "Pete. Kid. Wake up."

He's shaking. He can't breathe. The heavy weight of the woman's hand is on his chest and he can't—

Something swats his sternum, hard.

"Th'fuck." Peter blinks and, hey, Alex in a tank top.

"Hey," Alex says. "You were having a nightmare."

Which is obvious enough, and as Peter looks down to find Wanda sprawled over his left side with her left hand splayed out on his chest, it doesn't take a leap of genius to figure out what brought it on.

"She snuck in an hour ago," Alex says, answering Peter's unanswered question. "I didn't have the heart to kick her out." Alex moves around the bed and picks her up. Peter's about to protest that it's fine, but the second he shifts he realizes what's wrong.

"Hey," Alex says once he's set a still-sleeping Wanda on the window seat. "Shit happens, buddy. It's not a big deal." He reaches over and unhooks the tube from the pump, but pauses by Peter's head and wavers. "Would you rather hook it on your ear or have me do it? I don't know if that's too close to your face."

Peter takes a ragged breath, takes a second, and reaches for it.

"Good." Alex pulls down the wet mess of blankets over his lower half and hauls Peter up until he's sitting. "Dizzy? Nauseous?"

Peter shakes his head, and suddenly Alex is slinging Peter's arm over his shoulder and yanking him off the bed. He stumbles up, and Alex apparently takes this as a signal to start walking.

"I don't know about this exactly," Alex starts in a low voice so he won't wake Wanda. He pauses after two steps, grips Peter's waist more tightly, and waits for Peter to catch his footing. "But I was in the war. You're going to get knocked down, no matter what, but you can stay down or you can get up. That's up to you."

Peter doesn't point out that he has just literally gotten up (mostly because just then Alex sits him down on the closed toilet and he's busy taking the opportunity to catch his breath), but he takes the point. He's trying to slip out of his shirt when he hears the water running in the bath.

"Umm." He bites his lip and pops his head back out of the collar. Alex is looking at him, and he feels himself flush. "Can we. Not. Not the. They—I. Can I shower?"

Alex frowns, but he shuts the water off and crosses over to turn it on in the shower. He strips down to his boxers, which Peter feels kind of bad about, and helps Peter stand up and strip down to nothing. Peter feels kind of bad about that as well, though mostly because next to Alex he looks like a sickly, pale string bean with fuzzy silver mold sprouting out of his head.

By the time Alex herds him into the shower, it's starting to hit that this is the first time he's been out of bed in two days. Alex leans him against the wall and steadies him with one hand until he's sure Peter won't fall over. Peter's arms flop uselessly at his sides, and any half-hearted ideas of not needing Alex's help for this part float away with the steam that curls over the shower curtain.

"I'll be quick," Alex says, and grabs the soap. "Just, uh, lean back and think of England. And don't fall."

It's not the most awkward moment in his recovery (that award goes to the first time Hank took out his catheter), but it's bad enough. Peter can't even bring himself to appreciate soaking-wet and mostly-naked Alex, it's such a miserable, humiliating thing. Alex lets him sit down when they finish, helps him slide down the wall to the tile floor so he doesn't fall too hard and drops a towel on Peter's head. He comes back a minute later with with flannel pants, an Oxford hoodie, and another pair of briefs with pre-inserted leakage pads.

Peter does flush, this time, turns a bright, hot red that Alex can't help but notice. Of course, Alex doesn't mention it, choosing instead to tell Peter all about the stealth jet Hank's building which no one is supposed to know about, interjecting 'There you go,' or 'Almost done,' every so often. He helps Peter step into the briefs and pants and helps wrestle uncoordinated arms into the shirt and helps Peter back out of the bathroom and over to the visitor's chair by the bed before he goes back to dry and dress himself.

Peter drifts in and out while Alex strips the bed, gold hair glowing in the yellow light, and he's barely conscious enough to be of any help when Alex hoists him off the chair and onto the bed.

It does wake him up when Alex brings Wanda back and settles her beside Peter, though.

"But what if I have another nightmare and—"

"Nothing's going to happen," Alex says. He draws the covers up over both of them. "And she's scared. She got pretty freaked this evening."

Bastard knows his weak spots. Peter subsides. Alex moves around to his left, and he hands over the tube from behind his ear and starts to pat Wanda's hair but rethinks and grabs on to the blanket instead. The plastic rubs against his cheek, irritating still-damp skin, and he swallows and tries not to think of wet leather chafing his wrists.

"You okay?" Alex asks when he sits down.

Peter tries to focus on the wind against the panes and the hum of the pump and Wanda's steady, healthy breathing and still wants to grab the tube and rip it out. "No."

"Do you want me to get Charles or Erik?"

Peter shakes his head. He twists the blanket in his fingers and breathes, holds it, lets it out. Breathes, holds it, lets it out. He shuts his eyes, but the light hits his eyelids and paints everything red.

"Can you—could you turn the light off? Just until I fall asleep."

It switches off. Peter's eyes still ache. His fingers fidget and twist in the blanket, and he can still feel the tube against his cheek, and he doesn't know how the hell he's going to get through two more weeks of this.

"Better?" Alex asks.

Peter shrugs. He rubs his hand down Wanda's back and she's still, a warm, limp space-heater weight against his side. "Sorry. I'm being stupid."

He does not expect the smack on his upper arm, though in retrospect he probably should have.

"Don't be an idiot," Alex says. "If something helps you get better, it's not stupid, all right?"

"Fine." Peter's hands, as usual, are sweating, even though he's still not warm, and he rubs the palm of his right hand on the blanket to dry it. His fingers twitch, and he taps them on top of the covers.

"Do you want to take it out?"

Deep breath in, hold it, deep breath out, let the muscles on your neck and shoulder go, let all the tension bleed out, deep breath in, hold it, deep breath out.

His eyes burn. "Yeah."

He really, really does not expect Alex to reach over and grab his hand; even retrospect has him baffled.

"Oh my God." He yanks at it, but Alex has a firm grip on him and there's no give. "Dude. What."

"Did you know you've tried to rip it out when you're asleep?" Alex asks. "Several times. Hank said we're going to have to keep watching you even when you're doing better so you don't."

"Oh." Peter stills his hand. "Sorry. I didn't—"

"I didn't tell you so you'd feel bad. It's not a big deal. We do it in shifts so we get enough sleep, and once you're better Charles can pitch in, so it'll be even easier."

Peter's free hand stills on Wanda's back. "Charles? Why would he—huh. But I thought—"

"What?"

Peter shifts, trying to find a comfortable position on his pillow. "I thought he was just. Busy. He has better things to do."

Wanda squirms against him.

"Jesus," Alex mutters. "Sometimes I forget you're related to Erik, but then you say something so stupid—Peter, the reason he hasn't been watching you is because we were worried you'd have a seizure, and he physically can't move you or catch you or turn on your side so you don't choke to death on your own vomit."

"Oh," Peter says.

"We took lessons," Alex keeps on. "Hank stuck that goddamned tube down my nose several times so he could do it right on you. You know, after you went into shock Charles told Erik we could delay opening the school until fall if you need more time? We like you, you idiot."

"But—" Peter swallows. "But you've already hired people, and—but. But the school's important."

Alex huffs out a laugh that's somewhere between despair and disbelief. "Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty important, you moron."

"Oh," Peter says again. "But—oh. Huh."

Alex squeezes his hand. "Get some sleep, buddy."

"Right," Peter says. He shuts his eyes again and settles his hand flat on Wanda's back and feels her heart beat, strong and steady, and lets his mind wander. It's got a lot of ground to cover.

He drifts in and out a few times. Hank comes in when it's still dark for another feeding and replaces the soggy tape on his cheek. Peter doesn't make it all the way to lucid consciousness, but he feels it peeling off his cheek and grabs at it. Something warm wraps around his wrist and pins his hand down to his chest.

"Hey, it's okay," someone says. There's a low murmur of voices and a hand ruffling his hair, and there's a heavy weight across his stomach and shoulder that Peter thinks, for some reason, that it's really, really important he doesn't disturb, so he settles down and the world goes black again.

His mom takes Wanda and leaves a couple hours later. They wake Peter up for that so he can say goodbye. It's one of Wanda's days to spend with her dad, and it's a four-hour drive back to D.C. He hugs both of them goodbye, tells Wanda he'll see her in just a few days, and falls back asleep before his head hits the pillow.

He wakes up again when Alex swaps out for Hank, when the visitor's chair scrapes across the floor a little too loudly and jerks him out of a light sleep. It works out, though, as Hank helps him over to the restroom again, and any possibility of another accident is taken care of. What doesn't work out too well is when he yawns while he's looking in the mirror afterwards, because he catches sight of something white at the back of his throat and stupidly decides to take a closer look.

He doesn't throw up, which he counts as a win, but he panics loud enough that Hank has to come in and hold his hands and help him through his breathing exercises while they both sit up against the bathtub.

That, at least, wipes him out enough that he sleeps straight through to late morning. It's still Hank in the chair, again with the equation notebook, though this time around he's doodling stick figure mutants battling robots.

He shuts the notebook when he notices Peter looking at it. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Except when he answers he can't help but wonder how much it moves in his throat when he talks, or when he swallows, and he has to fist his hands in his sheets and take several measured breaths. "Uh. Maybe not. Is there something to do?"

Hank gives him a long, penetrating look, but he reaches over to the nightstand for one of Peter's math textbooks and some scratch paper.

Peter likes math, usually, as much as he likes any school subjects; numbers, at least, make sense, and if he's not a fucking math genius like Hank, he's not bad at it, either. He had a lot of problems when he was in school, but doing his homework wasn't ever an issue—even if that was in large part thanks to how quickly he could do it—and catching up has been easier than he'd expected, even working at a normal human pace.

So it really shouldn't be as difficult to concentrate on the problems as he finds it. The equations themselves are easy enough to deal with, but every few seconds a pattern emerges: Peter lets his thoughts wander away from the problem he's working on and, naturally, they wander straight to the NG tube. Peter then tries to think about anything he can to override his instinct to rip it out, and finds himself pressing the tip of his index finger against the knuckle of his thumb. Then Peter gets frustrated, because that does absolutely nothing, and his thoughts turn automatically to how else he can give himself a little bit of discomfort to focus on so his brain will fucking stop already.

Because it's his body, and no matter what Devries says or does he can't have it, won't have it, can't get to the part of Peter that's holding out and waiting and it's a reminder, that Devries doesn't have control over everything that happens to him, and it's easier than just sitting back and waiting for someone else to hurt him.

And Peter has to force himself to copy down the next problem right around the time he starts thinking longingly of the sharp edge on the screwdriver Hank left on the window seat or the Swiss army knife Alex keeps in the top drawer of the nightstand, because it's not that he wants to cause himself a lot of harm, really, just a teeny, tiny bit of it, but he promised Erik and Charles that he'd try, so he's trying.

He tries really, really hard.

It takes him about twice as long to finish one section as usual, but he does it, checking his answers at the back of the book until he's sure he's got it down. He's visualizing scraping a modest strip of skin off his wrist, but he bites his lip, flips to the chapter on quadratic equations, and starts reading.

So it's unfortunate that that's when Hank slips off to the restroom with an "I'll be back in a minute."

Peter knows he really means a minute. It's Hank; he's the most conscientious guy Peter's ever met, probably. But a minute's long enough to reach over to the nightstand and grab the knife and hide it behind his book, so Hank won't ever notice, and just having it—just feeling the weight of it in his hand would be a centering enough to let him think straight.

It's the easiest thing to reach over, pull open the drawer, and grab it, and he was right: it is soothing. Rubbing his thumb over it calms the anxiety in his throat and in his chest, and he shuts his eyes and lets his mind go deliciously blank for a second.

And then he puts it back and shuts the drawer.

Because he promised.

By the time Hank comes out, somewhat less than a minute later, he's got his blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his fingers tangled in the edges of it.

"Are Erik or Charles around?" he asks when Hank stops in the doorway.

"Yeah," Hank says, slowly. "They're working in the study. Do you want me to call them?"

Peter twists the blanket in his hands and ties a knot on one of the edges. He can't stop thinking about the nightstand, now. It's making his fingers twitch. "Can you take me to them? It'd be nice to get out of bed."

Hank takes another long look and his lips thin, but he says, "Sure," and pulls a folded wheelchair out of the closet, which Peter's pretty sure wasn't there before.

"I haven't had time to adjust it," Hank says, pushing it over to the bed, "So you're going to have to hold on to the pump stand."

It's considerably easier, even with that caveat. The stand rolls along easily beside the wheelchair, and it only takes half a minute to reach Charles' study down the hall from Peter's room. It only takes about a quarter minute for Peter to start feeling apprehensive.

"This is stupid," he starts. He grips the stand more tightly. "I'm good, actually. They're probably busy. I can wait."

Hank pats his shoulder. "Too late. I already told Charles you were coming."

"Why—"

"Trust me," Hank mumbles, "You don't want to walk in on them unannounced. Here we go." He nudges open the door to the study just as his first sentence filters through Peter's mind and parses itself, so when Charles and Erik look up, Peter's brain's just started to visualize it.

"Oh my God," he mumbles. He scrubs his hand over his eyes. "Jesus. What is wrong with you."

Hank, the bastard, chuckles—fucking chuckles—and pushes Peter in. Erik and Charles are sitting opposite each other at a coffee table with blueprints scattered over it, both with matching looks of concern.

"Peter," Erik says.

And "Is everything all right?" comes from Charles.

Peter's flush, which had started to recede with the thoughts of middle-aged dad sex, climbs back up his neck. He fidgets. "It's nothing."

The looks of concern transform simultaneously into twin looks of skepticism.

Hank, who Peter will never think kindly of again, hoists him off the chair and onto a hideous love seat, actually pushes the couch up near the coffee table, and heads out, setting the wheelchair by the door where Peter can't get to it without help.

"If you need me," Hank says, "I'll be working on—yeah, actually, I'm going to take a nap. Good night." The door shuts behind him, and two sets of eyes turn back to Peter.

"Umm." Peter stares down at his hands. "Sorry to. Bother you. Charles. And. Umm, morning. Uh. Dad."

A blueprint crumples in Erik's fist.

"It's no bother," Charles says quietly. "Is something wrong?"

"You said—you said to come if I kept thinking. Of. Hurting myself." Peter picks at a thread on the hem of the blanket and wraps it around his index finger. "I can't stop."

"Well," Charles says after a second in which he and Erik cast very expressive looks at each other and probably come up with a game plane. "We're very proud of you for coming to us, Peter. That's a big step."

"Yes," Erik says. "It's a good start."

Peter peeks up at his dad's face and looks back down again at the encouraging smile. He can't believe he's related to such a lame, sappy asshole.

"Actually," Charles says, wheeling himself over to his desk, "I had a chance to do some research, and I ordered some worksheets and therapy guidelines just in time. We can start with meditation, and then I have some activities I'd like to try."

There's a quite, quite thick file folder on his lap when he comes back around.

In retrospect, Peter really should have expected that.

Meditation's not as bad as Peter would have expected. The worksheets are. Talking his feelings out, Charles' third point of attack, is acutely excruciating. But he makes it two hours awake without actively trying to hurt himself, so Peter supposes Charles knows what he's talking about.

Peter's feeling well enough at the end of it, actually, that once the drowsiness starts to kick back in he suggests another try at the food exercise. It takes twenty minutes of Charles coaching him, but he manages to drink half a glass of Gatorade, which is both exciting and exhausting enough that he zonks out on his dad's shoulder and doesn't wake up again for four hours. When he does, he's back in his bed and Alex and Hank are playing Go Fish next to him.

Hank helps him to the bathroom and points out the wheelchair in the corner of the room, which by now has been fitted with an attachment that will clip around the pump stand so Peter can wheel himself around.

"Though not for a while," Hank says. "Your metabolism's kickstarted itself since you're getting enough calories again, so you actually weigh less now than when you did when we got you. So except for the bathroom, you're not getting out of bed again until I say so."

It's still sweet of Hank, though, and it's something to look forward to, so Peter tugs Hank into a hug with a mumbled "Thanks," when Hank props him up on the pillows. It's pretty awkward and stiff at first, but Hank loosens up after a second and actually pats him back. It's all very touching.

They deal him into the next round of Go Fish, and Peter makes it through to games with his mouth shut before his eyes start to droop.

"Can I ask you something?" he asks in Hank's direction when Alex is helping him lie down again. Peter bites his lip and stares down at his thumbs when Hank nods. "Umm. So, on a scale of one to ten..."

Hank purses his lips in concern at the hesitation and leans in.

"How do I compare to my dad, as a hugger? Is he more of a cuddler? Seeing how you've experienced both."

"I don't know about the cuddling," Hank says, leaning back in his chair and stretching his feet out on the bed. "Why don't you ask Charles? I bet he could tell you."

Peter stares.

"I take back every nice thing I ever thought about you," he says eventually, and means it. He spends the remainder of his waking time sulking.

Unconsciousness is a little more uneasy and a little too easy to come out of, now his body's starting to heal up again. It doesn't help that Hank's giving him extra calories via the tube more often, now, to accommodate his recovering metabolism, and Peter wakes up to Alex restraining his hands several times over the next few hours. He's cold, too, and goes in and out several times when someone tucks hot water bottles against him again. It's not incredibly peaceful and it's not incredibly restful, so when he jerks awake with a gasp from a nightmare just past four in the morning, he's groggy, off-balance, and a little bit nauseated.

There's a hand on his shoulder before he's fully aware.

"You're all right," his dad says. "I'm right here. You're safe."

The room looks much the same as usual. Bookcases loaded down with unorganized volumes; a box of domines on the nightstand; his dad, in jeans and boots and flannel shirt, leaning forward with a book, as always, open on his lap. Peter sucks in a ragged breath and sags back onto his pillow.

"Nightmare?" Erik asks.

Peter huffs and wipes a sweaty hand over a sweaty forehead. "What was your first clue?"

"Want to talk about it?"

Peter shrugs. He doesn't even remember what it was about, beyond the ubiquitous phantom sense of touch on his face.

Erik leans back and sets the book up on the nightstand. Peter checks out the spine—Gross Stress Reaction in Noncombatants. His throat aches, suddenly.

"Cards?" his dad asks. "Chess?"

"Nah, I—" Peter looks back up at the bookcases. "Read me something? I don't want to think right now."

Erik pats him on the chest and stands. "What's your poison? I'm afraid there's not anything recent."

Peter draws the blankets up to his chin and tries to see if it'll warm him up. "Is there any Jules Verne?"

His dad scans the shelves for a minute, but he finally grabs a well-worn hardcover with an 'Aha'. "You like Verne?"

Peter shrugs. "I've seen the movies on TV."

"Of course you have." Erik flops back onto the chair and props his feet up on the mattress. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to read this week. I'll draw up a list for you."

He opens up the book and clears his throat, but Peter interrupts before he starts.

"Hey, Dad," he starts. He pauses. "You said you still had nightmares. About Auschwitz."

His dad sighs. "I do, but not as much, and not as often. It lessens, the further away you get. You'll make new memories that push it aside, in time."

Peter's hand aches to punch himself and take away the still-shaky emptiness in his gut. He grabs his wrist instead, like Charles suggested, and massages it with his thumb.

"Okay," he says.

His dad pats him on the knee and leans back in his chair. "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Chapter One: A Shifting Reef."

Peter lies back on his pillows and shuts his eyes, and the words wash over him like waves on a beach.

* * *

 **CONTENT NOTES:**

Hypoglycemic shock, including an offscreen seizure, is included.  
There's a lot of dealing with PTSD from torture/captivity of an underage character, including:  
Self-worth issues  
Minor self-harm shown onscreen  
More serious self-harm mentioned/discussed, but doesn't occur  
Bed-wetting  
Anxiety (including panic attacks)  
Mentions of impotence  
Nightmares/flashbacks to torture such as:  
1\. Force-feeding/Starvation  
2\. Water torture(?) (Holding someone underwater repeatedly)  
3\. Dehumanization  
4\. Emotional manipulation/mind control for brainwashing  
5\. Minor sleep deprivation

Also, this one has a lot of food issues/disordered eating. The underage character, due to trauma from force-feeding/starvation & dehumanization, starts having panic attacks when he tries to eat and eventually has to use an NG tube. The panic attacks and the food issues are graphically described. Consent for the intubation is unclear, and it causes anxiety and he's not allowed to take it out later. The food issues are addressed with exposure/cognitive therapy (many liberties being taken with best therapy practices for the purpose of fic), and though they're not entirely solved by the end, it's heading in that direction.

Also also, this (as well as the rest of the series) occasionally has language that was common in the 70s but which is now considered ableist.


End file.
